They always are, never special, stilla. The only special thing is that everyone in the WT organization hears the same boring talk approximately on the same day.
Love, Blondie
Comments You Will Not Hear at the 4-10-05 WT Study (Marriage--March 1)
by blondie 47 Replies latest watchtower bible
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EvilForce
They are called special talks because they aren't from the same pool of 70 or so public talks regurgitated week after week after week. Enough of an outline to keep the "brother" somewhat on track but enough room to have him insert his own beliefs about what the bible... I mean FDS requires of us as "good Christians".
Or maybe they are called special talks because the spiritual food is so pureed, sliced, and diced into mush a "special" person could digest it. -
blondie
EF, there are approximately 120 public talk outlines and the special talk outlines are added each year. But snce the brother who is assigned to be the talk coordinator (under the PO's authority) makes the choices with the talk coordinators in other congos, what you end up hearing is the talks that those brothers are prepared to give. Many elders are only assigned to 3 or 4 talks, though some can do more. But in the end, out of the 49 weeks (after the SD, CA, and DC are factored out), usually only 30 to 40 of the talks are heard, and re-heard, year after year after year.
That's why the special talk may seem special, because it is supposed to be a new outline. Once I looked at the list of talks and was surporsed how many are basically duplicates.
http://hufffamily.com/html/public_talk_research.html
Love, Blondie
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EvilForce
Blondie,
Keep in mind I haven't stepped foot into a KH for over 10 years...so the public talk list has grown... but as you mention it is alot of the same material over and over again. I remember hearing the same talk 3 times by 3 different "brothers" in 18 months. Scheduling issues, etc....
But since the material is so dry and uninteresting it's easy to slip into "Kingdom Hall Coma" as we used to call it. Sit down lull youself into some trance to seem interested in the material and wonder if the KH is in a blackhole since time grinds to a virtual halt.
LOL -
blondie
Good point, EF.
A new elder once commented that the outlines all seemed to be the same and he was sure he had heard the same talk 3 times in the last 3 months.
I can remember the days when the brothers did their own outlines and had props and pictures and charts and graphs. But no more.
A brother once used a glass of water and a piece of dirt as an illustration and was counseled on that.
When my husband was an elder, I used to help him but putting the outlines online and bringing in the quotes from WT publications. I started learning how old the quotes were, some 20 years old.
Public talk is an oxymoron too nowadays since except for a "bible" student once in awhile, there is no Public attending.
I can remember handing out slips with the name of the public talk on it from door to door...now they are only generic.
And the brothers they choose for public speaers, are PP (pi**-poor).
Missed another talk and study today...yay!.
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willyloman
commented that the outlines all seemed to be the same
One time I had a talk in another congo and just got incredibly busy the two or three weeks prior and next thing I knew, it was Sunday and I was getting ready to drive to a neighboring town to give a talk from an outline I hadn't even looked at. All my other "prepared" talks were in a three ring binder in comprehensive outline form, including illustrations, scriptures written out, etc. (Thank God for computers). So I showed up at the hall, placed my open notebook on the lectern, and showed the chairman the cover sheet, which had my name, the name of the talk, and the song number. He dutifully read that to the congo and I gave a talk I'd given countless times.
Afterwards, there were the usual accolades from a bunch of publishers. After several minutes, one elder slid up next to me and paid me a compliment on the talk. Then he added, "However, I thought you were giving [name of other talk]. We just had this one last week."
I just looked at him and said, "Do you think anyone noticed?"
"Probably not," he replied.
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EvilForce
Yes, and I'm sure some kiss ass invariably said to another one who missed the meeting "It was one of the best talks I ever heard, and had such interesting, unique perspective."
Yuck! -
heathen
blondie --- You've got to be kidding right ? What on earth do they do these days , look through everybodies book bags and see if there are any printed material besides WTBTS publications? The thought police strike again eh . Jacob did have to work for 14 yrs in order to fullfill his obligation for rachelle , I didn't see any mention of dating there it was more like a purchase price or something . I guess if we take the week after his marriage to leah at a day for a year then it comes to 7 yrs .LOL
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blondie
blondie --- You've got to be kidding right ? What on earth do they do these days , look through everybodies book bags and see if there are any printed material besides WTBTS publications?
Actually, heathen, elders and MS have been instructed to notice if people have their WT articles underlined or not. Sometimes the mike handlers get that job.
People have noticed when I have not had the NWT but another translation with me. Of course, they don't go into their book bags but you have to pull out the printed WT magazine into the open eventually. Elders aren't just walking around during the meeting to stretch their legs.
Blondie
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jgnat
Well, I went to the meeting today. I found out that Christendom has lied to all of us by suggesting that Jesus had grey eyes. The speaker insinuated that if Christendom lied about that, how can we trust anything they say, hmmmmmmm?
Here are my comments on the marriage article:
I notice that all the BAD things that can happen in a marriage are covered right up to paragraph seventeen. They didn't leave much room for what makes marriages great. Which is what the theme of their (unnamed) author is all about who is quoted in the first paragraph. The latest trend in counselling is to interview happy people to find out how to be happy (instead of interviewing depressed people to find out how not to be depressed). Similarly, this author interviewed happy couples to find out how they did it. Her book sounds interesting, unlike this study.
Oddly, most of the scriptures referenced are not directly about marriage. Could it be that HQ has another agenda, such as encouraging meeting attendance and "wholesome" married-couple-door-to-door-field-service bonding?
The statistics on the state of marriage are old, at least ten years out of date. At least in Canada, the divorce rate is on a downward trend. The statiticians speculate that this may be because couples are waiting longer to get married.
Canadian statistics:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/kits/pdf/divor3.pdf
Americans are still divorcing: